teamLab: Digitized River and Forest

2018.2.09(Fri) - 2.18(Sun)

Tokushima City CenterTokushima

TOKUSHIMA LED DIGITAL ART FESTIVAL

In 2018 Tokushima City will hold a digital art event using LEDs. The purpose of the event is accentuate the charm of the city, create new value, and draw visitors from both within Japan and abroad. In addition to symbolic art exhibitions, there will be a range of events going on in Tokushima, including workshops and seminars.

teamLab: Digitized River and Forest

Tokushima City is a city of water that is nurtured in the Yoshino River and flows through 138 rivers.

In the castle ruins of Tokushima Castle, in the center of town, there is the Shiroyama primary forest (a forest untouched by human hands). Areas of virgin forest such as this are very rare in Japan. Also located in the central area of town there is a very unusual and vast green belt, with a “dragon king” camphor tree that is 600 years of age, and 80 kinds of wild birds survive in the area.

Taking advantage of Tokushima City's natural beauty, we use light, sound, and digital technology, to transform the river and the forest in the center of the city into a digital art space that changes according to the existence of people.

The self-righting ovoid objects are autonomous, they shine brightly and then fade as if they are slowly breathing.When the objects are pushed by people, the color of their light changes, and they emit a unique sound tone. The color and the sound then resonates out to the objects around them. The resonating light is transmitted to the next object one after another, spreading the color tone in the same way continuously.If a wave of light rushes from one direction, it signifies the presence of a person in that location. As a result, people gain a heightened awareness of the presence of other people in the same space.

This interactive digital installation consists of a seemingly endless number of life-sized holograms. The figures depicted in the holograms exist independently from one another. They play instruments and dance, and each individual is influenced by the sounds from the figures close to them. There is no lead figure that oversees or influences all the other dancers, and there is no center or order enforced on the crowd. External events can cause disorder, but in time, peace will gradually be restored.When a person enters the installation and a figure senses the viewer, that figure responds to the person and stops playing music. The figure passes on this information to other figures close by. After a short period of time, the figure will start playing music and dance again, but this disturbance will have disrupted the harmony. If, however, the viewer stays still or leaves, the dancers will begin to form back into one harmonious group and the feeling of peace will return.In Japan, there is a primitive dance festival called the Awa Dance Festival dating back so far that its origins are unknown. Groups of individual dancers play music and proceed around the town arbitrarily. Groups play their own music as they like and dance as they like. Interestingly, for some reason, the music forms into a peaceful order across the whole town. Dancers who randomly meet other groups of dancers gradually and subconsciously match the tempo of their music with that of the other group. This is not due to any set of rules; it just feels right and happens without conscious choice. It seems that when people are set free from their inhibitions, an extraordinary peaceful feeling prevails despite the lack of any order to the dances. Perhaps this is how people of ancient times maintained a feeling of peacefulness.Today, in the Internet age, the speed at which people can connect with others has accelerated. As a result, people throughout the world have become increasingly connected, and these connections have become more important. What we experience in this new age is similar to the experience of the dance festival, and perhaps in these unordered connections there is a way to find peace. The figures that appear in the holograms are anonymous and unknown. This helps the viewer to feel as though they are a part of the installation, and that anyone can experience the feeling of peace without order.

The light of each tree is autonomous; slowly breathing, it shines brightly and then fades. When visitors or animals approach the trees, the light changes color and a tone resonates outward. The neighboring trees will also resonate, switching to the same color and tone. This response will ripple outward to the surrounding trees; it will finally reach the trees in the mountains, and the mountains themselves will resonate. If a wave of light rushes from one direction, it signifies the presence of a person in that location. If a wave comes from the mountains, it means that animals are there. As a result, the audience will have a heightened awareness of the presence of other people in the same space and of animals in the forest.

Three-dimensional fireworks made of a cumulation of light points can be set off by visitors with their smartphones. After selecting a firework on their smartphone, people can see thee firework as a three-dimensional light display composed of hundreds and thousands of light points.

Height 5210mm, Width1280mm, Depth160mm, a giant three-dimensional LED object.A seasonal year of the flowers of Tokushima, blossom and scatter over a period of twelve hours. In continuous change the flowers grow, bud, and blossom, and eventually they scatter, wither, and fade away. The flowers go through a continual cycle of birth and death, repeating forever.When a person stands before the flow of falling sand, the sand’s path is changed by their presence; the flow of the sand parts, and a space opens. Since ancient times, people have gazed at falling sand to gain a sense of the passage of short moments in time—and they have watched the changing of flowers to feel the passage of long-term changes in time.The work is rendered in real time by a computer program; it is neither a pre-recorded animation nor on loop. The interaction between the viewer and the installation causes continuous change in the artwork. Previous visual states can never be replicated, and will never reoccur.

We reproduced the Bunkanomori Park building in 3D in a virtual three-dimensional space. The movement of water was then simulated as if it was a waterfall flowing over the shape of the building. The waterfall is then projection mapped onto the actual building. The water is expressed as a continuum of numerous water particles and the interaction between the particles is calculated. Lines are drawn according to the behavior of the water particles. The cumulation of lines that represent the waterfall are then “flattened” in line with what teamLab considers to be ultrasubjective space. When a person stands on the waterfall they obstruct the flow of water like a rock, and the flow of water changes. The flow of water continues to transform due to the interaction of people. The same moment is never repeated again.

VISITE

Venue Details

Título

teamLab: Digitized River and Forest

Duração

2018.2.09(Fri) - 2.18(Sun)

Horas

6pm – 10pm
*Exception applies to the following artworks:
・Peace can be Realized Even without Order : 1pm – 10pm (6pm – 10pm only on Feb 9)
・Flowers in the Sandfall – A Whole Year per Hour, Tokushima: Weekday: 9am – 10pm, Weekend&Holiday: 6pm – 10pm
・Universe of Water Particles on Bunkanomori Park: 7pm – 9pm

teamLab (f. 2001) is an international art collective, an interdisciplinary group of various specialists such as artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects whose collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world.

teamLab aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world and new perceptions through art. In order to understand the world around them, people separate it into independent entities with perceived boundaries between them. teamLab seeks to transcend these boundaries in our perception of the world, of the relationship between the self and the world, and of the continuity of time. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity of life.

teamLab’s works are in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Asia Society Museum, New York; Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and Amos Rex, Helsinki.